


Sweetest Sixteen

by Loz



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Birthdays, Character Study, Coney Island, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Spoilers for Captain America: Civil War, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 03:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11175861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loz/pseuds/Loz
Summary: The day Steve turns sixteen, the sun sparks against his skin like an electrical current and he and Bucky share a day together at Coney Island. Steve thinks about kissing Bucky. Sixteen or eighty-four years later, Steve's older, but not wiser. He's also nowhere near the beach of his youth.





	Sweetest Sixteen

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Brook](https://twitter.com/annoyingbrook?lang=en) and [Dana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dana/pseuds/Dana) for beta-reading and Ameri-picking this fic. This was written because a line in _Captain America: Civil War_ likes to repeat itself in my mind. It’s one of those lines where you kind of go, “What else could this have possibly meant?”

The sun sparks against his skin like an electrical current and Steve knows he’s going to be red raw across the bridge of his nose and cheeks tomorrow, that a simple idle scratch will have him wanting to cuss, but he doesn’t get up. His bright Irish complexion is a curse he’s going to ignore until the end of time. It’s summer, his predictable summer cold has finally vanished, and though he doesn’t usually love crowds – too easy to get lost in them – he likes sitting on the beach alongside the hustle and bustle of overexcited families. It’s independence day, but there’s no independence to be had here, they’re jammed together like tinned sardines.

He’s sketching them at the moment, foregrounded with a backdrop of the gentle incoming tide. It’s a panoramic; loosely sketched in some areas, detailed in others. The pencils his mom gave him this morning are made for this kind of sketching, aren’t the worn down too-hard nubs he’s used to, and the sensation of paper against the lead makes him smile to himself.

“I know you’re impressed with yourself,” Bucky says as he settles next to Steve on the beach. He glances at the picture, raises his eyebrows. “And you should be. But you gotta put it down.” 

He shoves his left hand toward Steve. There’s ice cream already melting over his knuckles, little rivulets that have him whining something about wasted potential, Steve’s not really listening to him over the hub-bub of the sea and families chatting nearby. He puts his stuff down, takes the cone, and starts licking. It’s furious, fast work. Bucky stares at him even as he tongues at his own fingers and the webbing in between, eyes narrowed. Steve tries to ignore him, but every time he thinks Bucky’s going to glance away, look toward the sea like Steve is, he’s proved wrong. 

“What?” Steve asks, before taking another large swipe of sweet, creamy cold that has his toes twitching happily in the sand. 

“I don’t even get a thank you?”

“It’s my birthday.”

“A year older, but not a year wiser. You’d best remember your manners, Steven,” Bucky chides, and he sounds so much like Steve’s ma, Steve laughs one of his booming laughs and nearly tosses all of his ice cream onto his shorts. 

“Thanks, Buck, you’re a true friend,” Steve counters. “A grandstanding cheapskate who needs platitudes for every penny spent, but a real buddy.”

Bucky has a way of looking at Steve that twists Steve’s gut into knots, and he’s doing it right now. It’s a combination of knowing and fond that reminds Steve that Bucky might not be his only friend, but he sure is his closest. Reminds him also that sometimes he thinks about what it’d be like to be closer still. 

They are thoughts he tries to reserve for three in the morning or at his most feverish. They don’t seem to notice, they come to him unbidden at all hours.

“You think you might turn that one into a painting?” Bucky asks, finally looking somewhere else – the picture Steve was painstakingly drawing.

“Not sure a beach scene would work in monochrome.”

“I’ll pick out the colors if you want.”

Steve crunches down on the edge of his cone, gnashes around it because half the pleasure in expensive sweet treats is being as undignified as possible.

“Tempting offer, but how’d I know you’re seein’ it right? Maybe you see green when it should be bluer? Red when it’s more orange? Yellow when it’s brown?”

Bucky shrugs. “How do we know anyone’s seein’ it right? _Maybe_ you’re the one who’s got it all squared away and it’s everyone else imagining shades that aren’t there?”

“Hues,” Steve corrects. “I can see different shades just fine.”

“Maybe better than the rest of us, like I said.”

Steve considers his drawing again. He likes the composition even more from this angle, thinks he’s getting a good handle on perspective and spacing. “I think it’s fine as is.”

Bucky’s good at reading when it’s the right time or wrong time to push. It’s one of the reasons they work together well. Bucky doesn’t treat Steve like he’s fragile, doesn’t coddle him, and he will absolutely tell him to stop being a self-sacrificing or self-effacing ass. 

This is one of those times when Steve doesn’t need even the smallest of shoves and Bucky leaves well alone. He finishes his ice cream cone with a snap, licks at the corners of his lips to get the last lingering smears of cream. 

Steve watches him out of the corner of his eye, willing his heart to stop drumming a tattoo against his rib cage. He doesn’t want to be thinking about what the sugar would taste like against Bucky’s cold lips. Doesn’t want to picture the gentle movements they’d make pressed close together, incremental tilts and tiny maneuvers, attempting to find the perfect angles. He’s seen Bucky kissing girls and he’s been inordinately jealous of both parties near every time. He wonders what it’d be like to slide his lower lip over someone else’s, capture it with small suck. He thinks specifically about Bucky’s full lips, glistening invitingly.

Steve shakes his head as if to rattle the thoughts away and picks up his sketch once again. He’s only planning on adding a few minor details, but they need his undivided attention. He can be single-minded when the need arises, and it’s imperative here. Bucky’s used to him going into silent artist mode and lies back onto the sand, stretching his arm up behind his head and affecting a yawn.

An hour or more later, Steve loses track of time, Bucky’s swirling a wet finger in his ear and rubbing his knuckles against his head at once. “It’s finished,” Bucky declares, jostling Steve from side to side. “Complete. Goddamn _perfect_. Don’t add another line!”

“Get off, you slimy octopus. Obviously I’ve gotta add some tentacles to ya so I’m nowhere near done.”

“Steve,” Bucky whines, long and low. “Don’t you wanna lose your lunch on a rollercoaster? Don’t you wanna see the sunset from the Ferris Wheel?”

“No to the first, ehhh to the second.”

“I’m gonna bury you here, where you belong, you little urchin,” Bucky howls, starting to gather up sand and toss it over Steve’s feet and legs. Steve grabs his arms and wrestles him to stop, throwing his full weight into it. They grapple, shouting and dusting each other with fine-grained sand that goes absolutely everywhere. 

And Steve loves it, every second, feeling Bucky squirming under his hands, his eyes alight with mischief, his grin wide and a little wild. He and Bucky are tactile most of the time, but getting to be this close, skin to skin, even if it’s a tussle rather than a tender touch, is almost more than he can bear. 

They stop when the mom of the family closest to them marches over with a fierce glare at Bucky. 

“You should be ashamed of yourself, bullying this young boy,” she intones, stentorian. Bucky opens his mouth to reply, but she cuts him off. “I don’t care if you’re brothers. A strong young man like you should know better.”

Steve is about to stand up and tell her exactly where she can take her misplaced rage, about to defend Bucky to hell and back, but Bucky slides a soft hand over his arm and shakes his head. “Leave it,” he whispers. “Sorry ma’am,” he says, louder, to the woman who is starting to peer at Steve suspiciously -- and Steve hopes she’s starting to realize he’s not the tiny defenseless creature she took him for. That, actually, he was probably winning their fight. 

Her apparently good deed for the day done, the woman nods her head decisively and storms back to her young daughters, starting to fuss loudly when she discovers the smallest covered in seaweed. 

“C’mon, Stevie, let’s go look at the amusements,” Bucky says, launching himself up and holding out his hand. 

He doesn’t look mocking, which is one of the things Steve will never understand – how he doesn’t take opportunities to kick a man when he’s down, always wants to make sure they’re on the same footing before he’ll needle or tease Steve. He treats him like an equal because he always ensures that’s what they are. The hand is a genuinely friendly gesture, and Steve takes it, but with a swift glance at the woman, tugs Bucky too hard against his side and digs in with his elbow. Bucky only just manages to muffle a squawk of pain and indignation. 

“Things like that happen because you call me Stevie, you know,” Steve grumbles as they walk along, toward Luna Park – half complaint, half humor. 

“My name’s _Bucky_.”

“Salient and cogent point.”

“Hey you know I don’t think of you as a kid brother, don’t you? How could I? We look nothing alike,” Bucky says, and he sounds earnest, but his smirk belies his words. 

“Yeah, yeah, wise guy. I seem to remember you promised to pay for my ticket into Luna Park?”

“When?”

“When I was stuffing handfuls of sand down your pants and you were begging for mercy.”

“That was a _threat_.”

“Well, I’m cashing in anyway.”

Steve doesn’t enjoy the rollercoaster. Ice cream flavored bile is not a pleasant concoction and he keeps worrying he’ll lose his sketchpad and pencils. But his pride has been dented and though the terrifying and vomit-inducing ride had never truly been offered in challenge, it’d felt like one. 

It’s a thing he never knows how to articulate, the sense that everyone except his ma and Bucky underestimate him, that he has a visceral urge to prove that. 

People look at him and they see a child, a frail thing, a body that fails. He must hate himself, he’s heard people mutter, for being so small, so infirm. ‘Poor Steven,’ Mrs. Eldridge said. ‘His heart’s giving up on him again.’ ‘A useless little runt,’ Bucky’s dad once intoned. ‘Good for nothing but food for worms someday soon, and what a shame because he has a brain in his head.’

But he loves this body, for all its faults. He’s stronger than anyone ever credits him for. The doctors go wide eyed when they see he’s has pneumonia twice and has asthma attacks every third week, twist their lips up and try to offer pity when they have no solutions, but Steve likes to point out that this body of his has seen him through those calamities every time, that it’s still fighting for him, no matter the foe.

It isn’t his own sense of inadequacy that has him taking foolhardy risks and making ill-advised decisions, it’s everyone else’s.

“You wanna go on the Ferris Wheel next?” he asks Bucky, because even though Bucky’s one of the few people in the world who doesn’t look at him and find him wanting, it’s hard to shake an ‘I must succeed to spite their idiocy’ attitude. 

Bucky gives him a long, considering look. Steve doesn’t know what he sees, but he nods eventually and gestures forward. 

The wheel’s in the half of the park that isn’t fenced off; newly painted and refurbished. It looks better than when they came last year, another treat brought about by penny-pinching and overtime. If it hadn’t cost 55 cents per person to get in, Steve believes more people would be here, lapping up the late afternoon sun. Steve thinks about the views he could capture from up high, and decidedly not about being pressed tight alongside Bucky’s side on a seat where no one can see them.

They have to wait in line for twenty minutes so they continue a well-worn argument about Buzz Boyle and Sam Leslie. A kid in front of them turns around and yells that the Dodgers are a ‘flopperoo’ and Steve knows Bucky would never hurt a ten year old for real, but that doesn’t stop him from insinuating it based on their encounter at the beach.

Finally, they’re on the ride, and Steve’s wordless. He gazes around them as they ascend, watching as the people below become insignificant specks. 

The quality of light is changing and Steve realizes they really are watching the sunset from the Ferris Wheel, like Bucky joked about earlier. He begins to suspect it wasn’t a joke so much as a plan. It has him shifting in the seat, jostling Bucky so that the entire carriage swings. Bucky grasps hold of his arm, staring at him aghast.

“You got a death-wish, Rogers?” Bucky asks, sounding panicked.

“Sorry,” Steve mutters, but he’s not, really, because Bucky’s thigh is a long line of heat against his, his hand is on his forearm, and Steve’s remembering Bucky beneath him in the warm sand. 

“Just stay still,” Bucky implores, more muted now. He doesn’t remove his hand, only lessens his grip.

Steve’s mouth is dry, his heart rattling inside him once more, like a screw loose. This stable body of his is being a treacherous bastard at this moment, his spine zinging with reverberations of every point of contact between him and Bucky. 

“It’s beautiful, Buck, thanks.” Maybe if he makes everything too sincere Bucky won’t notice he’s practically vibrating apart. 

“Anything for you, pal,” Bucky replies, simply, continuing to stare at Steve rather than the dazzling view before them. There’s an affectionate glint in his eye again, a softness in the pout of his lips. He slow-blinks, seems to lean closer, but maybe it’s the sudden lurch of the wheel bringing them back down to earth. 

They take the train back, Bucky slinging his arm around Steve’s shoulders as he walks him home, humming that annoying Happy Birthday song that Steve sincerely hopes will die before Bucky would sing it to his own kids. Steve didn’t successfully maneuver him to the side where he’s hard of hearing either, so he gets it full volume. It’s unreasonably good being in the warmth of Bucky’s hold, though, even if it’s not the kind of embrace he’s been envisaging, so he doesn’t complain too much. He complains a little.

“Hope you had a good birthday,” Bucky says as they arrive by the side of Steve’s, uncharacteristically quiet. He kicks at the dirt in the alley, awkward like he never is around Steve. 

“Best yet,” Steve says. And it’s true. He couldn’t have asked for anything more. Sunshine, art, ice cream, a hot dog from Nathan’s and his best friend by his side? It was the kind of special he’s never had.

Bucky smiles, rocks back on his heels. “See you tomorrow.” 

He hesitates before he leaves, a moment, more, but eventually slinks away. Steve watches him go, wincing when he goes to scratch his nose and it burns like an open flame. 

*

Steve’s wearing long sleeves and thick sweats, has been sitting still for an hour, maybe more. He knows he imagines the chill he feels down to his bones. The temperature outside’s reported as being in the high seventies. Actually, it’s reported as being 26, but Steve refuses to use Celsius. He was Captain America, after all. The cold, it’s psychosomatic; one of those modern terms that his ma would’ve described _differently_. (“Off his nut, love,” she answered once when he asked why one of their neighbors kept visiting her complaining about tonsils that’d been long cut out. But Steve understands that man now, as disturbing as he’d found him at the time; the body _remembers_.)

Is it guilt? 

Is it longing?

Is it a telepathic link?

Was it better or worse that he let Buck go into that goddammned tube without argument? It was Bucky’s choice and that’s important, that’s everything he has, but maybe all Bucky had wanted was Steve to say “please”, “don’t go”, “there must be another way”?

Steve has never been good with hypotheticals. They always feel like a test.

Steve _knows_ he imagines the chill, but he wraps himself up in a layer of blanket and curls up tighter on the couch, reminiscing about a week from now, 84 years ago. He wonders if he’d close the distance between them and kiss Bucky like he’d fantasized about, if he could do it all again. He suspects not. Everyone always thinks he’s courageous, incapable of backing down from a fight, but that’s only when other people’s interests are on the line. He finds it hard to gather the same strength when it’s in his own. He doesn’t need to wonder if he’d kiss Bucky now, if he were sitting beside him. The answer’s a resounding no, for a multitude of reasons. 84 or 16 years older, but not wiser.

“This isn’t another sad Steve session, is it?” Sam’s voice says from behind him. “Thought we were gonna prepare today? It’s not every year a person hits the triple digits.” 

Steve wants to argue that it indeed happens multiple times every year, but he presses his lips together, breathes slowly through his nose.

Sam vaults onto the couch, frowns at Steve. Usually, Sam encourages displays of emotion, but Steve’s been reliably informed he’s been a Debbie Downer lately and told in no uncertain terms by more than one person that he needs to keep pushing on. T’Challa pointed out that he has a duty to his friends. Wanda parroted advice he gave to her about Pietro. Natasha sent a text asking him whether Bucky would want him to wallow.

“Sorry,” Steve murmurs, but he isn’t really. He doesn’t have the energy for it. 

Sam shrugs, like it isn’t a big deal. “It’s okay. You want me to leave you alone?”

Steve shakes his head. He wants… to acknowledge his sorrow. To let himself feel. But he’s tired of doing it by himself. 

“You want a hug?” Sam asks next. It’s easy for him – offering, giving, receiving. Maybe it never used to be, but he’s learned how to make it.

“Yeah,” Steve sighs. 

If he cries silently into Sam’s shoulder as his arms wrap tight around him, neither of them mention it. 

Sam conjures up a holoscreen -- one of Shuri’s technical marvels – and they watch Wakandan soap operas. Trying to figure out what’s going on distracts Steve enough that by the end of the day he’s trading wise-cracks with Sam, is playing with Wanda’s hair as she sits between their legs on the floor. She wandered in during episode three. They spend two episodes voicing all the characters, giving them terrible facsimiles of various American accents. Wanda does a spot on Goofy impression and Steve almost falls off the couch.

It’s good, spending time with friends. He remembers that he’s not as old as he feels in his bones, not as juvenile as he feels when it comes to basic human emotion. He forgets that he has a pervading sense that his feelings are too nuanced for his understanding. A mixture of wondering what it would’ve been like for things to go differently, but a resolute refusal to feel regret. 

He’s made his choices and he stands by them. He wasn’t forced into this situation like others were. He made informed decisions. Just because they haven’t always worked out the way he wanted, doesn’t mean he should reject them.

But at the same time, he can’t help but have entire alternate worlds mapped out in his imagination. Hallways of multiple doors numbered three.

“Steve, you drifted off,” Wanda says, sounding simultaneously remonstrative and worried. She reminds him of Becca, another little sister he isn’t related to; someone to be both feared and protected all the same. 

“Looking deep within me to find my next voice,” Steve lies, going over the top ridiculous when a new character appears a minute later. Steve has no idea how the production team for this show can afford so many actors. Perhaps they’re just grabbing people off the street.

“In some ways it feels like a day ago,” Steve says at ten pm, when Sam says he should be getting to bed. Wanda left when she yawned for a straight minute. Apparently, Sam and T’Challa have some kind of endurance test going on at 6 in the morning. Steve thinks the terms are probably which one can go the longest without flirting. 

“What does?” 

“My life before the serum, before being a superhero, before all this.” Steve gestures around, quirks his eyebrow wryly. “When all I had was my ma and Bucky, but I didn’t mind.”

“I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” Sam says, gently, each word given its own weight, like it’s been carefully measured. “That means it’s close to your heart. Usually, as humans, we dwell on negatives. It’s a way of protecting ourselves. To be able to recall the good times? I think that’s a gift. It’s how you view it that’s important. Are you gonna make it highlight the things you’re missing? Or are you gonna add to what you’ve already got?”

“I didn’t think of it that way before. Thank you, Sam. Sincerely.”

“Oddly formal, but you’re welcome,” Sam says, patting Steve on the shoulder and shuffling off to his own room.

Steve buries himself under his covers, but he doesn’t sleep. He has fantastic night vision and he stares at the ornate light fixture on the ceiling, the detailed rose surrounding a crystal chandelier – they’re both ancient and futuristic, like everything in Wakanda. 

He thinks about his sixteenth birthday again, confused how it can feel so present, so real, when it was half his lifetime ago – when for other people, it was an entire lifetime ago. He thinks about the way his chest went tight seeing Bucky with rolled up pants and his undershirt, how he felt so content with his lot in life, sketching and whiling away the hours as Bucky snoozed beside him. He thinks about the way Bucky gazed at him, half wonder, half knowledge, all fondness. Steve remembers how he watched him back, full of gratitude that he was allowed someone in his life who not only understood him, but pushed him to be the best he could be. 

There are other times Steve could think about through their years together – the look in Bucky’s eyes when he told Steve he didn’t have to be alone after his mom died, the desperate need Steve felt to be at Bucky’s side when he signed up to fight in a necessary but still terrible war, sharing a tent on several occasions as the Howling Commandos bickered outside the canvas and they seemed to have their own little world; almosts, maybes and what ifs. 

He thinks of his sixteenth birthday because this was when he first realized that what he was experiencing weren’t the disparate situations of liking his best friend and being physically attracted to a good looking acquaintance. It wasn’t that despite this, or some sort of unfortunate side-effect from too much time spent together.

Steve walks through the palace, inputs the security codes for the lab. They’ve never tried to keep him out. Not even Ayo, whose glare could put terror into the strongest warriors’ hearts. After entering the protective vault, he sits in front of Bucky’s cryochamber, wrapped up in his plushest blanket. Bucky looks pure and serene, his whole face relaxed. Like he’s finally, mercifully, being given the peace he’s always deserved. 

Steve pulls his knees close to his chest, encircles them with his forearms, rests his chin. He peers at Bucky, the softness of his mouth, the shadow of his eyelashes. 

“I think we were in love,” Steve whispers, voice still sounding loud in the stillness of the dark. “I know I always will be.”

*

Steve spends the lead up to his birthday helping Sam coordinate video calls and plan decorations and a menu. He’d tried, early on, to say that this wasn’t a big deal and should get swept under the rug, but Sam had spread his hands out wide and said, “You see any rugs around here?” So, Steve is grudgingly helping with celebrations. 

Steve also gets his ass handed to him on a plate by new recruits to the Dora Milaje. He’s learned a lot training with Ayo and in return she uses him as a punching bag. Considering they have actual robots for that, Steve wonders if she’s trying to teach him something deeper than ‘a staff jab in the sternum hurts’. 

All in all, the days go by quickly, and before he knows it, it’s the night before his birthday and he’s staring up at the ceiling again, trying desperately not to feel. He allowed himself that earlier on in the week and all it did was pour salt on the wound, send his mind spinning. Steve’s better off when he can compartmentalize, when he can box things up and store them away in neat categorizations. It isn’t always necessarily the _right_ choice, but it means he’s still going about his day, fighting the good fight. 

If people don’t think he’s a beacon of strength and courage, they tend to conversely think he’s a broken down wind-up toy that’s two seconds away from plunging to the ground and shattering into pieces. He doesn’t know how to explain that this isn’t wholly accurate either. 

Steve is all these things and more, and god, it’s tiring. He wishes he could sleep.

He gets up and walks to the lab again instead, this time foregoing the blanket. He’s intending not to stay as long, just wants to see Bucky’s tranquility for a moment. Thinks maybe it’ll transfer over somehow.

He enters the lab and stands still for the biometric scan so that he can enter Bucky’s specialized vault. He can’t shake the sense that something’s wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck are tingling and he swears he heard a shuffle coming from the opposite direction of the guards.

Bucky’s cryochamber is empty. 

Steve drops down into a fighting stance immediately, casts his gaze around. His heart has picked up speed and he reflexively holds his arm in front of the trunk of his body, wishing he hadn’t rejected Shuri’s suggestion of a replacement shield. Someone’s managed to sneak into the palace and take Bucky and Steve is going to fight to get him back, or die trying.

“Calm down, Rogers, you’ll pull a muscle.”

Steve spins in place to confront Bucky, wearing black sweats and a gray t-shirt. He has the world’s softest expression on his face and it takes all of Steve’s power not to rush him and fold him into a tight hug.

“Bucky? What are you -- _how_ are you here?”

Steve can hear his blood rushing through every single one of his veins and he feels like he’s going to burst open and unleash a wave of unfettered joy. Bucky’s awake, and doesn’t look angry or despondent about it. Which must mean that he wanted to be awake.

“Did you know T’Challa still feels real bad about those times he tried to kill me? I’m gonna be cashing in favors for decades.”

Steve mock rolls his eyes. “Of course. Shoulda known Bucky Barnes wouldn't be expending time and energy to pull strings.”

“Joke's on you. Before I got T’Challa to make demands I spent nine whole minutes trying to convince the doctors, Ayo, and Shuri. You ever faced them all down? Simultaneously?”

Steve hasn’t. He was smart and tackled them one at a time. But he doesn’t say that. He’s unsteady on his legs and he can’t help but swing closer into Bucky’s orbit.

“I can't say as I have. Why’d you do it?”

“It's your birthday, Stevie. You deserved a gift.”

“Kinda presumptuous don’t’ya think? That your presence is all I need on my hundredth birthday? Where’s my flying sports car? Where’s the relocation of the Dodgers back to New York?”

There’s a flicker in Bucky’s eyes for a second and Steve is worried he might’ve forgotten how they always used a mixture of bullshit and sincerity to communicate. But then Bucky laughs – actually laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his lips stretching wide, voice ringing out like a sweet melody. 

“Maybe, yeah,” Bucky says. “Maybe it was a gift for me rather than you. I already missed too many birthdays. Didn't wanna miss this too.”

Steve chokes up at that, his nose stinging, the corners of his eyes going tight. 

“Can I hug you?” Steve asks, past the point of being embarrassed by how small and pathetic he sounds. So much weaker than he ever did when he was a full foot shorter than Bucky. 

“If you absolutely gotta,” Bucky replies, but there’s a look of hunger on his face, like this is all he’s been waiting for.

“I absolutely do.”

Steve steps close and wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist, tugs him tight. He buries his face into his shoulder and breathes in the clean, warm scent of him. Bucky strokes his hand up Steve’s back, relaxes into him. Steve never wants to let go. It feels like home, finally, after all these years. 

*

They go to bed eventually, Bucky retiring to the room his doctors set up for him, Steve going back to his own quarters, a spring in his step. He’s out like a light as soon as his head hits the pillow, even though his mind has been swirling with questions. Had Sam known about Bucky’s request? Is that why he insisted they make an effort? Does that mean they could be friends after all rather than what seem like schoolyard nemeses? How long is Bucky intending to be out of Cryo for? Steve sleeps and when he first wakes up, he worries it was a dream.

But Steve doesn’t dream – or if he does, it’s never clear and he only ever remembers negative emotions associated with whatever his mind concocted – so it had to have been real. 

Sure enough, after he’s showered and dressed, he walks into the common living area that adjoins Sam’s, Wanda’s and his quarters to find Bucky and Sam squabbling over a birthday banner that’s skewing at an angle. 

“Up a bit on the left,” Steve says, grinning at the twin glares sent his way.

“Oh, _now_ you wanna help,” Sam says, doing what Steve suggested regardless.

“Real fuckin’ useful,” Bucky adds.

Steve’s pretty sure they’re going to bond over their mutual frustration with him alone.

Bucky sidles up to Steve and nudges into him. He’s looking at Steve like they’re about to share a joke; an old expression that’s unfamiliar on this older version of Bucky, but very welcome. 

“So, apparently, I’m supposed to keep you occupied for a few hours so that the other surprise portions of your birthday party remain a surprise,” he says, softly.

Sam lets out a grunt. “Barnes, have you heard of subtlety?”

“Yeah, but I’m talking to Steve Rogers here, birdie-boy, and he doesn’t do well with subterfuge.”

“You want me to show you my favorite part of the palace grounds?” Steve asks, achingly thankful he’s going to be allowed to spend time with Bucky alone. 

It isn’t that he isn’t happy to be surrounded by his other friends – he is, he’s well aware of the sacrifices they’ve made alongside him, of how he wouldn’t be the person he is today without their support and influence. But the idea of a few hours in Bucky’s company, no fight or flight necessary, overshadows that knowledge.

Because the truth is, he’s always thinking about how other people view him – there’s a weight of responsibility before him and he’ll push against it but never let it drop, like he’s a modern-day Sisyphus – but the only person alive who truly sees him is Bucky. 

Sam gets close, Natasha too, but they’ll still slip and say, “Cap” before they’ll say, “Steve.” Wanda and Sharon clearly want to understand him, but having never known him before, can’t rationalize his words and actions. T’Challa understands the weight he has to carry, but not that it was his choice. Peggy and his ma were the only other people to really _get_ Steve, and they’re gone, now, far away into the silent land – always loved, never forgotten. 

Steve’s been battling with his guilt at how much gratitude he feels that Bucky’s alive for over two years. Sometimes, it still blindsides him. He refuses to feel guilt over it today, when Bucky takes hold of his arm and tells him to lead them out of the room.

“Where’d you go, just now?” Bucky asks, frowning at Steve. He waited until they were outside to ask. They’ve been walking in companionable silence for a few minutes.

Steve looks at the lush greenery around him rather than Bucky because he’s going to tell the truth and he doesn’t know what the response will be. He doesn’t know how _he’d_ respond, so Bucky’s a wildcard, despite knowing him tip to toe.

“I was thinking about how much I appreciate that you’re here,” Steve says. “I know that’s terrible, considering what you’ve been through. But I do, y’know?”

“I’d goddamn hope so. I did tell you I stared down the doctors, Ayo, _and_ Shuri, right?”

“You know that’s not what I mean, Bucky,” Steve says with a quirk of his lips. He chances a glance in Bucky’s direction. He’s surprised to find him shrugging. He’s staring at Steve, his posture unguarded, and he’s almost smiling.

“The thing is, I feel the same way.”

Steve tells Bucky about being a stand-in tactical dummy for the Dora Milaje, about trying new foods, learning new technology, trying to work out how to be a person again. Bucky tells him about living in Romania, about his travels before he got there, also about trying to work out how to be a person again. It’s an easy conversation – the kind Steve honestly never thought they’d be able to share again. 

When they arrive at Steve’s favorite spot, Steve sits down and gestures for Bucky to join him. They sit on a rocky ledge with a view of waterfalls on the other side of a narrow chasm. Steve loves being here, surrounded by trees that would make the tallest of sequoias envious. The sound of the water streaming to the gully below is soothing, and the dappled light is warm and forgiving. 

“It’s nice here. You draw it yet?”

“No.”

“You should.”

Steve gives a wry duck of his head. “I don’t know if I could do it justice. I haven’t picked up a pad and pencil in years. Since the Chitauri invasion. You heard about that?”

“I saw it.”

Steve finds himself staring at Bucky, wanting to catalog every expression. “You did?”

“Pierce used me as his personal bodyguard for a week,” Bucky says, not bothering to hide his disgust. 

“I never asked -- how much do you remember?”

It’s a loaded subject, he won’t push if Bucky brushes him off, but he’s curious.

“It depends on the day. Sometimes, all of it. Sometimes, it’s like I can remember that I know more about a subject, but no matter how hard I try, it’s locked away deep inside. Sometimes I’ll get a flash and I’ll have this vague sense that it’s something that I used to know. It’s frustrating. And concerning. I can just about handle that there’s only one person I can trust, but the fact it’s not me is hard.”

“For what it’s worth, I trust you enough for the both of us.”

“That’s worth precisely nothing, Stevie. You let me punch you within an inch of your life.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “I had you on the ropes.”

“Yeah, yeah, you could do it all day, I know.” Bucky rocks in place, smooths his hand over Steve’s back, narrowing his eyes in contemplation. It sends a frisson of delight up his spine.

“What’re you doing?”

“Looking for your pullstring, see if you’ll start singing that glorious Star Spangled Man with a Plan song.”

“So that’s what ‘end of the line’ means. I always did wonder.”

Bucky knocks into him, shakes his head. “You wanna know what I remember most clearly? Another one of your birthdays. We went to Coney Island and you sketched almost the entire day. But I didn’t tell you how bored I was, because you were happy. I’d never really seen you like that before -- free.” 

“That’s how I felt,” Steve confirms. His heart’s settled into the persistent high-kick drumming it’s always had when it comes to Bucky.

Bucky glances to the side, eyes going distant. “We tussled, in the sand. You were minutes away from burying me completely and some harsh-nosed broad poked at us and told me to leave you alone. She thought _I’d_ been bullying _you_. And then all I remember is sitting with you, up high, like this. Your hair was golden and your smile just as bright, and I thought I’d do anything to get you looking like that again.” Bucky frowns. “I don’t remember the year.”

“1934. It was my sixteenth birthday. You bought me ice cream and a hotdog and it was the best day of my life.”

“Exacting standards, of course,” Bucky says, ribbing Steve in the way only he knows how. “Sweet sixteen, huh?”

“The sweetest.”

Steve doesn’t have the words to express what it’s like to know that someone else remembers that day, that Bucky does, and though it’s foggier, and more obviously a time relegated to the past, it’s still important enough for recollection.

“I think one of the reasons I’m thankful to be here is that it proves those fuckers wrong. They tried to erase me, to write over my life, but I’m still me in here. I had to fight for it, but I won. I’m different, sure, my body’s done shit my mind can’t always comprehend. Doesn’t want to, truthfully. But inside, in the core of me, I’m the same.”

“I know how that feels,” Steve says. “It’s how I felt after the serum. The world changed how it viewed me, apart from you and Peg, but I knew who I was. That’s all that mattered.” 

“I’m gonna do something I wanted to do all those years ago, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to suffer through it ‘cause of pity if that’s how you feel. You need to tell me if you don’t want it or like it. I never did that to you, so I’d prefer it if you didn’t do it to me,” Bucky says, eyes stormy. 

“How about you put your money where your mouth is and do it, see how I react,” Steve counters.

They’ve inched closer together, the gap between them filled with body heat. Bucky’s expression is the same as it was that day; raw affection and understanding. Judging by the softness of his smile and the certainty of his movements, he figures he’s looking at Bucky the exact same way.

“That’d make what I wanna do complicated.”

“ _Buck_. C’mon, man.”

Bucky reaches up and cradles Steve’s jaw. Steve wants to record every detail. Bucky’s hand is large and his fingers calloused, but his touch is gentle. He caresses Steve’s jawline, thumbs at his lower lip. His gaze is completely focused, now, intent on Steve’s mouth, before he sweeps in and captures him in a kiss.

It’s tender and chaste and it still sends heat licking up every single one of Steve’s nerves. He hums against Bucky’s mouth, joyous like he’s never been. Bucky eases back after a while, but Steve chases him, pecking at his lips with increasingly long kisses, widening his mouth and deepening their connection. Bucky tugs him closer, until there’s no space between them. 

Steve refuses to feel regret over not initiating this kiss himself, but he can’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like to have been doing this for years. It’s perfect. 

“Happy Birthday,” Bucky says between one breath and the next. They’re resting their foreheads together, legs tangled, Bucky’s thumb stroking the soft skin at the back of Steve’s neck, one of Steve’s caressing Bucky’s jaw.

“Best yet,” Steve replies.

And it’s true. He couldn’t ask for anything more.


End file.
